History Main / WaveMotionGun

** ''Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' have the Death Star's Superlaser, which is capable of [[EarthShatteringKaboom reducing a planet to debris]] in mere seconds. Though the first Death Star only used it to destroy planets, the second was refined to be able to fire on capitol ships.

to:

** ''Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' have the Death Star's Superlaser, which is capable of [[EarthShatteringKaboom reducing a planet to debris]] in mere seconds. Though the first Death Star only used it to destroy planets, the second was refined to be able to fire on capitol capital ships.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}, Hanzo's ultimate ability, Dragonstrike, is a beam of two huge intertwining dragons (or wolves, with the right skin) that go through walls, do continuous damage to any character in contact with them, and keep going until they hit the boundary of the map. (Although most of the time they'll have gone off into the sky or into the ground by then and no longer pose a serious threat.) Being caught in a Dragonstrike will reliably kill most characters including tanks unless they can get out of the way ''immediately'' after they start taking damage, have a temporary invulnerability ability like Reaper or Mei, or are protected by Zarya's barriers or the massive amount of healing from Zenyatta's ultimate.

to:

* In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}, ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', Hanzo's ultimate ability, Dragonstrike, is a beam of two huge intertwining dragons (or wolves, with the right skin) that go through walls, do continuous damage to any character in contact with them, and keep going until they hit the boundary of the map. (Although most of the time they'll have gone off into the sky or into the ground by then and no longer pose a serious threat.) Being caught in a Dragonstrike will reliably kill most characters including tanks unless they can get out of the way ''immediately'' after they start taking damage, have a temporary invulnerability ability like Reaper or Mei, or are protected by Zarya's barriers or the massive amount of healing from Zenyatta's ultimate.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}, Hanzo's ultimate ability, Dragonstrike, is a beam of two huge intertwining dragons (or wolves, with the right skin) that go through walls, do continuous damage to any character in contact with them, and keep going until they hit the boundary of the map. (Although most of the time they'll have gone off into the sky or into the ground by then and no longer pose a serious threat.) Being caught in a Dragonstrike will reliably kill most characters including tanks unless they can get out of the way ''immediately'' after they start taking damage, have a temporary invulnerability ability like Reaper or Mei, or are protected by Zarya's barriers or the massive amount of healing from Zenyatta's ultimate.

*** Finally ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' gives us the Beam Magnum, essentially a super-charged version of the standard beam rifle. In the Universal Century, beam rifles have e-packs, effectively energy-based magazines which contain enough energy for roughly seven or eight shots; the Beam Magnum expends ''all'' of the e-pack's energy in a single shot, producing a battleship-class particle blast. The same series also fields the ''Nahel Argama'' again and [[spoiler: puts Gyrps II back in service, requiring the Unicorn (and Banshee) to [[{{Badass}} tank it]] with [[DeflectorShields psychic forcefields]]]] in the finale.

to:

*** Finally ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamUnicorn Unicorn]]'' gives us the Beam Magnum, essentially a super-charged version of the standard beam rifle. In the Universal Century, beam rifles have e-packs, effectively energy-based magazines which contain enough energy for roughly seven or eight shots; the Beam Magnum expends ''all'' of the e-pack's energy in a single shot, producing a battleship-class particle blast. The same series also fields the ''Nahel Argama'' again and [[spoiler: puts Gyrps II back in service, requiring the Unicorn (and Banshee) to [[{{Badass}} tank it]] it with [[DeflectorShields psychic forcefields]]]] in the finale.

* In GeneRoddenberry's ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', the big bad has ships equipped with Point Singularity Projectors. Essentially capable of firing off black holes which measure several dozen meters across and can blow holes in anything, from spaceships to planets, to a sun.

to:

* In GeneRoddenberry's Creator/GeneRoddenberry's ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'', the big bad has ships equipped with Point Singularity Projectors. Essentially capable of firing off black holes which measure several dozen meters across and can blow holes in anything, from spaceships to planets, to a sun.

** The monstrous Hellfury Cannon mounted on the [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Squat]] Cyclops super-heavy vehicle, from the second edition of the ''Epic'' [[GaidenGame gaming system]], fires a stream of phased particles that react with each other to create a beam of pure energy that can destroy any target it hits. Even [[DeflectorShields energy fields]] are little protection as the energy flux within the beam overloads them in swift succession.

* The Particle Lance and its upgrade, the [[GameBreaker feared]] Tachyon Lance of ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. The capstone of the beam weapon tree, the Lances can only be mounted on the largest hardpoints of the greatest capital ships and devour an obscene amount of reactor power. They also tear through armor, have enough range and accuracy to be fired from ''across entire solar systems'', and deliver simply grotesque amounts of raw damage with every blow. They're also the signature weapon of [[HigherTechSpecies Fallen]] [[VestigialEmpire Empires]].

to:

* The Particle Lance and its upgrade, the [[GameBreaker feared]] Tachyon Lance of ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}''. The capstone of the beam weapon tree, the Lances can only be mounted on the largest hardpoints of the greatest capital ships and devour an obscene amount of reactor power. They also tear through armor, have enough range and accuracy to be fired from ''across entire solar systems'', and deliver simply grotesque amounts of raw damage with every blow. They're also the signature weapon of [[HigherTechSpecies Fallen]] [[VestigialEmpire Empires]].Empires]], who [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill combine this with]] BeamSpam.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy